National

FPI’s Immigration Research Initiative examines the role of immigrants in the New York State economy and beyond. The initiative is guided by an expert advisory panel and is directed by David Dyssegaard Kallick, FPI Senior Fellow.

January 14, 2015. Immigrants are a little more likely to own businesses than their U.S.-born counterparts, but they are a lot more likely to own Main Street businesses such as grocery stores, restaurants, and barber shops, finds a new study released today by the Fiscal Policy Institute and Americas Society/Council of the Americas. Immigrants make up 16 percent of the labor force and 18 percent of business owners, but 28 percent of Main Street businesses (defined as retail, food services… (read more)

January 14, 2015. Immigrants are entrepreneurial—that is by now well established. But how much more is not as widely understood.

As I was working on a report about immigrant business ownership, Bringing Vitality to Main Street, released today by the Americas Society/Council of the Americas with the Fiscal Policy Institute, I dug into what the research shows.

What I found is that there is broad consensus that immigrants are a little more likely to own businesses than their U.S.-born counterparts,… (read more)

November 21, 2014. In response to President Obama’s announcement that he will use the power of the executive office to shield about 5 million people from deportation and give them authorization to work, the Fiscal Policy Institute has prepared answers to the following questions.

What are the economic implications of administrative relief?

The Fiscal Policy Institute expects a 5 to 10 percent increase in wages for the roughly 5 million workers expected to be eligible for legal work status. A… (read more)

July 14, 2013. In an op-ed for the Daily News, by David Dyssegaard Kallick takes on the ways Emma Lazarus’s famous poem (“give me your tired, your poor…”) has distorted in recent media stories about immigration, and brings the debate back to America’s roots.

“Give me your tired, your poor . . . If there’s room after more Ph.D.s,” is the headline from a recent article in TechCrunch, which goes on… (read more)

July 10, 2013. This morning, the Institute on Economic and Tax Policy (ITEP) released a report that estimates that unauthorized immigrants currently pay $744 million in state and local taxes in New York State, a number that would increase to $968 million if these same immigrants were granted legal status. The share of family income paid in state and local taxes would increase from 7.1 percent to 8.4 percent.

June 27, 2013. A Newsday op-ed by David Dyssegaard Kallick stresses the need for labor standards enforcement as part of comprehensive immigration reform.

Paying people off the books is, of course, illegal. But does it happen? We know it does.

The good news is that there’s no great mystery about how to stop it. Labor departments — at the state and federal level — are responsible for enforcing workplace standards. They are the ones who can ensure that employers… (read more)

June 4, 2013. A new report from the Fiscal Policy Institute shows that legalizing undocumented immigrants, paired with labor standards enforcement, would boost economic productivity. Reform would remove barriers to advancement for newly legalized immigrants, create a level playing field for businesses, and align our systems of taxation, social services, and social insurance so that they would function as they are supposed to.

“Immigration reform, done right, would be good for immigrants, but it… (read more)

February 24, 2013. This op-ed piece by David Dyssegaard Kallick of FPI and Tanya Broder of the National Immigration Law Council ran in the Kansas City Star, the Denver Post, the Bradenton (Florida) Herald, the Anchorage Daily News, and other local papers around the country.

America is a nation of immigrants. Our American journey and our success would simply not be possible without the generations of immigrants who have come to our shores from every corner of the globe. It is… (read more)